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NEW YORK, October 23, 2015 (C-Fam) The UN family planning agency (UNFPA) drifted further into controversial territory with a new report on HIV and sexually transmitted infections among men who have sex with men – and boys.

UNFPA’s report implies that promiscuity and dangerous sexual practices are a pervasive part of the male homosexual experience, a charge that the Southern Poverty Law Center would label as “hate” if it came from a conservative Christian group. At the same time, the report ignores the fact that having multiple sexual partners, especially multiple concurrent partners, greatly raises the risk of infection. The advice it offers for changing sexual behavior is limited to using condoms and lubricants.

UNFPA begins with a definition of MSM as “men who have sex with men,” and “should be understood to include young men, i.e. those in the age range 10–24 years.” While MSM is generally considered to be a behavior rather than an identity, UNFPA includes those “who experience sexual attraction towards the same sex.”

This definition seems to create a “community” based on a common behavior or inclination, despite the fact that some men swept into this grouping may not identify themselves as belonging to it. UNFPA repeatedly calls for strengthening “community” systems and empowering groups to promote the cultural acceptance of homosexual behavior.

UNFPA co-authored the report with several groups, including the World Health Organization, and USAID and PEPFAR (the U.S.’s foreign aid and HIV/AIDS programs). While the report ostensibly aims to prevent the spread of diseases, it instead attempts to turn high-risk behaviors into a “community”— encompassing ten-year-olds being abused or sold for sex and individuals choosing not to act on their attractions.

UNFPA and its collaborators rely on interpretations by sexual-rights advocates of human rights standards, citing a UN Development Program report calling for the decriminalization of prostitution and homosexual behavior, and the Yogyakarta Principles, a document produced by non-governmental groups.

The report notes the “significant prevalence of intimate partner violence among men who have sex with men,” and admits they “are more likely to use alcohol and [illegal] drugs than other adults in the general population.” They use drugs and alcohol, it claims, to “overcome social inhibitions and increase confidence while seeking sexual partners,” as well as to “provide psychological enhancement of sexual experiences, [achieve] the ability to engage in sex for extended periods of time, and lower sexual inhibitions.” Drugs “may help them cope with a diagnosis of HIV and escape from the fear of rejection due to their HIV positive status.”

Regarding behaviors associated with MSM, UNFPA recommends, “more research on enema usage and rectal fisting is needed, especially to develop guidelines.” It avoids calling them “harmful cultural practices,” a concept frequently denounced in UN documents.

Much of the report is devoted to HIV prevention and management through antiretroviral drugs, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which are very costly, as well as the widespread dissemination of condoms and lubricants.

UNFPA mentions reparative therapy only to dismiss it as “shown to subject men who have sex with men to additional emotional and psychological trauma.”

Reprinted with permission from C-Fam.